6. The Old Boundary

 
The medieval hunt

In the open fields to your right watch for hares boxing, pheasants skitting, skylarks singing, ravens croaking, and buzzards peeping. In spring cowslips and thyme grow … “I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows… (Oberon to Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Halfway, a huge 150 yr old oak stands: only a few boundary trees survived the clearance of the west part of Chase Wood (to your left) in the 1980s. The large field is now ploughed cropland, but once, Elizabeth 1 almost certainly hunted there.

Onward Directions

Continue along the path until you arrive at a kissing gate and a sandstone block, a secluded patch of woodland and ponds to your left.